Quotes about wisdom
page 9

“It is undoubtedly easier to believe in absolutes, follow blindly, mouth received wisdom. But that is self-betrayal.”

John Ralston Saul The Doubter's Companion

"Humanism"
The Doubter's Companion (1994)

Betrayal

“Fools learn wisdom through misfortune.”

Democritus Ancient Greek philosopher, pupil of Leucippus, founder of the atomic theory

Source Book in Ancient Philosophy (1907), The Golden Sayings of Democritus

Fools, Learning

“It’s six months since I did the interview with Jeremy Paxman that inspired this book, and British media today is awash with halfhearted condemnations of my observation that voting is pointless and my admission that I have never voted. My assertion that other people oughtn’t vote either was born of the same instinctive rejection of the mantle of appointed social prefect that prevents me from telling teenagers to “Just Say No” to drugs. I cannot confine my patronage to the circuitry of their minuscule wisdom. “People died so you’d have the right to vote.” No, they did not; they died for freedom. In the case where freedom was explicitly attached to the symbol of democratic rights, like female suffrage, I don’t imagine they’d’ve been so willing if they’d known how tokenistic voting was to become. Note too these martyrs did not achieve their ends by participating in a hollow, predefined ritual, the infertile dry hump of gestural democracy; they did it by direct action. Emily Davison, the hero of women’s suffrage, hurled herself in front of the king’s horses; she defied the tyranny that oppressed her and broke the boundaries that contained her. I imagine too that this woman would have had the rebellious perspicacity to understand that the system she was opposing would adjust to incorporate the female vote and deftly render it irrelevant. This woman, who left her job as a teacher to dedicate her life to activism, was imprisoned nine times. She used methods as severe and diverse as arson and hunger-striking to protest and at the time of her death would have been regarded as a terrorist.”

Russell Brand book Revolution

Revolution (2014)

Life, Death, Women, Hunger

“Father, I am greatly disturbed by a vision which has appeared to me through divine revelation, a vision seen not with my fleshly eyes but only in my spirit. Wretched, and indeed more than wretched in my womanly condition, I have from earliest childhood seen great marvels which my tongue has no power to express but which the Spirit of God has taught me that I may believe." Steadfast and gentle father, in your kindness respond to me, your unworthy servant, who has never, from her earliest childhood, lived one hour free from anxiety. In your piety and wisdom look in your spirit, as you have been taught by the Holy Spirit, and from your heart bring comfort to your handmaiden.”

Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179) Medieval saint, prophetise, mystic and Doctor of Church

Letter to Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, 1146-47

God, Appearance, Heart, Childhood

“God would grant all of us wisdom, calm, and peace, that his presence would be in the operating room, and that his will might be done.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Source: Take The Risk (2008), p. 20

God, Peace

“Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. Men have a right that these wants should be provided for by this wisdom.”

Edmund Burke book Reflections on the Revolution in France

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

Men

“Despite the disorder observed in Nature, one finds enough traces of the wisdom and power of its Author that one cannot fail to recognize Him.”

Pierre Louis Maupertuis (1698–1759) French mathematician, philosopher and man of letters

Les Loix du Mouvement et du Repos, déduites d'un Principe Métaphysique (1746)

Nature

“My hearers, this discourse has not wandered out into the world to look for conflict, it has not tried to get the better of anybody, it has not even tried to uphold anybody, as though there was battle without. It has spoken to you; not by way of explaining anything to you, but trying to speak secretly with you about your relationship to that secret wisdom mentioned in our text. Oh that nothing may upset you in respect to this, “neither life nor death nor things present nor things to come nor any other creature” (Romans 8:38) –not this discourse, which, though it may have profited you nothing, yet has striven for what after all is the first and the last, to help you have what the Scripture calls “faith in yourself before God” (Romans 14:22).”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Source: 1840s, Sermon Preached at Trinitatis Kirke, 1844, P. 173

Life, Death, God, Secret

“Sweet songs of youth, the wise, the meeting of all wisdom
To believe in the good in man.”

Jon Anderson (1944) English singer

Lyrics of "Loved by the Sun", on the soundtrack of the film Legend (1986).

Youth

“The Almighty Truth of the Trinity is our Father: for He made us and keepeth us in Him; and the deep Wisdom of the Trinity is our Mother, in Whom we are all enclosed; the high Goodness of the Trinity is our Lord, and in Him we are enclosed, and He in us. We are enclosed in the Father, and we are enclosed in the Son, and we are enclosed in the Holy Ghost. And the Father is enclosed in us, and the Son is enclosed in us, and the Holy Ghost is enclosed in us: Almightiness, All-Wisdom, All-Goodness: one God, one Lord.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

Summations, Chapter 54

God, Truth

“They [universities] may be said to resemble antiquated coquettes of the last age, who think everything ridiculous and intolerable but what was in fashion when they were young, and yet are standing proofs of the progress of taste and the vanity of human pretensions. Our universities are, in a great measure, become cisterns to hold, not conduits to disperse knowledge. … they can only be of service as a check-weight on the too hasty and rapid career of innovation. … The unavoidable aim of all corporate bodies of learning is not to grow wise, or teach others wisdom, but to prevent any one else from being or seeming wiser than themselves.”

William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer

"On Corporate Bodies" Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

Age, Fashion, Knowledge, Thinking

“The idea that ancient equal years of accumulated wisdom is a fallacy. […] In medicine, 'ancient' also means developed before we understood the causes of disease, before germ theory. It was based on ignorance then and age makes it no truer. We misguidedly look back to a golden age that never was; ours is the golden age of safe tested medicine, effective beyond placebo, in which we've cut infant mortality and conquered diseases, then forgotten they existed.”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

The Enemies of Reason, "The Irrational Health Service"
The Enemies of Reason (August 2007)

Age, Disease, Idea

“An important aspect of Nonconformity was its cult of the Bible as the fount of all wisdom. But the Bible takes much of its colour from whoever is reading it, and it provides a text to support almost every shade of opinion, however preposterous.”

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist

Melodrama: The Silver King (1993).

Support, Reading

“We don't have worms at the Palace of Wisdom.”

John Hennigan (1979) American professional wrestler

The Palace Of Wisdom

“Here is the wisdom of the ages: Men rule but women decide.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Number of the Beast

Source: The Number of the Beast (1980), Chapter XLVII : “There are no tomorrows.”, p. 464

Women, Men, Age

“But we make such mistakes all the time, all through our lives. Wisdom, I suppose, is seeing this and acting upon it before it is too late. But it is often too late, isn’t it? – and those things that we should have said are unsaid, and remain unsaid for ever.”

Alexander McCall Smith (1948) British writer

Love Over Scotland, chapter 96.
The 44 Scotland Street series

Time

“Let us have "sweet girl graduates" by all means. They will be none the less sweet for a little wisdom; and the "golden hair" will not curl less gracefully outside the head by reason of there being brains within.”

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) English biologist and comparative anatomist

"Emancipation — Black and White" (1865)
1860s

Girl

“To act with common sense, according to the moment, is the best wisdom I know; and the best philosophy, to do one's duties, take the world as it comes, submit respectfully to one's lot, bless the goodness that has given us so much happiness with it, whatever it is, and despise affectation.”

Horace Walpole (1717–1797) English art historian, man of letters, antiquarian and Whig politician

Letter to Sir Horace Mann (27 May 1776)

Happiness, World, Sense

“At the foot of the cross, in all humility and in all adoration, we have learned at once the depth and the height of human nature; we have learned to think all wisdom but foolishness for the knowledge of Christ; all purity but sin, unwashed by His atonement; all hope in earth, of all hopes the most miserable, but in the faith of His most blessed resurrection; content to bear the struggles of life, at His command; and submitting to the grave, with a consciousness that it can sting no more.”

George Croly (1780–1860) Irish poet, novelist, historian, and divine

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 172.

Life, Faith, Hope, Nature

“Knowledge is simply a terrible ocean we must cross, and hope that wisdom lies on the other side.”

Paolo Bacigalupi (1972) American science fiction and fantasy writer

"The Pasho", Asimov's Science Fiction, September 2004

Hope, Knowledge

“One question may possibly have dwelt in the reader's mind during the perusal of these observations, namely, Why should not the Deity have given to the animal the faculty of vision at once? … Why resort to contrivance, where power is omnipotent? Contrivance, by its very definition and nature, is the refuge of imperfection. To have recourse to expedients, implies difficulty, impediment, restraint, defect of power. … amongst other answers which may be given to it; beside reasons of which probably we are ignorant, one answer is this: It is only by the display of contrivance, that the existence, the agency, the wisdom of the Deity, could be testified to his rational creatures.”

William Paley (1743–1805) Christian apologist, natural theologian, utilitarian

Source: Natural Theology (1802), Ch. 3 : Application of the Argument.

Question, Nature, Animals

“Almighty God, Who has given us this good land for our heritage; We humbly beseech Thee that we may always prove ourselves a people mindful of Thy favor and glad to do Thy will. Bless our land with honorable ministry, sound learning, and pure manners. Save us from violence, discord, and confusion, from pride and arrogance, and from every evil way. Defend our liberties, and fashion into one united people, the multitude brought hither out of many kindreds and tongues. Endow with Thy spirit of wisdom those whom in Thy name we entrust the authority of government, that there may be justice and peace at home, and that through obedience to Thy law, we may show forth Thy praise among the nations of the earth. In time of prosperity fill our hearts with thankfulness, and in the day of trouble, suffer not our trust in Thee to fail; all of which we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

This is a misquotation of a prayer from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer (ministry should be industry and arrogance should be arrogancy). This was a revision from an earlier edition. The original form, written by George Lyman Locke, appeared in the 1885 edition. In 1994 William J. Federer attributed it to Jefferson in America's God and Country: Encyclopedia of Quotations, pp. 327-8. See the Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia http://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/national-prayer-peace. Misattributed

God, People, Peace, Justice

“Love must kiss that mortal’s eyes
Who hopes to see fair Arcady.
No gold can buy you entrance there;
But beggared Love may go all bare—
No wisdom won with weariness;
But Love goes in with Folly’s dress—
No fame that wit could ever win;
But only Love may lead Love in.”

Henry Cuyler Bunner (1855–1896) American writer

The Way to Arcady. Compare Louise Chandler Moulton, The Secret of Arcady (1892).

Love, Hope, Kiss

““Late Shri. Cakyar, was not just a skilled exponent and a capable teacher of Kutiyattam, his wisdom and depth of knowledge made him worthy of the title "Acharya" ”
- Dr. Prem Lata Sharma (noted Hindi writer and scholar of Indian arts and literature), 1994”

Mani Madhava Chakyar (1899–1990) Indian actor

Abhinaya and Netrābhinaya Source: Nāṭyakalpadruma : Kerala kī Kūṭiyāṭṭam nāṭyakalā kī rūparekhā http://worldcat.org/oclc/44811805&referer=brief_results(Hindi translation), Mani Madhava Chakyar, Dr. Prem Lata Sharma (Ed), Sangeet Natak Akademi New Delhi, 1994

Art, Literature, Knowledge, Teachers

“the most remarkable piece of reading that you may be recommended to take and try if you can study is a book by Goethe—one of his last books, which he wrote when he was an old man, about seventy years of age—I think one of the most beautiful he ever wrote, full of mild wisdom, and which is found to be very touching by those who have eyes to discern and hearts to feel it. It is one of the pieces in "Wilhelm Meister's Travels." I read it through many years ago; and, of course, I had to read into it very hard when I was translating it (applause), and it has always dwelt in my mind as about the most remarkable bit of writing that I have known to be executed in these late centuries. I have often said, there are ten pages of that which, if ambition had been my only rule, I would rather have written than have written all the books that have appeared since I came into the world.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1860s, On The Choice Of Books (1866)

Books, Age, World, Beauty

“The inequities in human relationships are many, but the lot of the Negro is one of the worst. Here in the south this fact is tragically evident. The poor colored people are kicked from pillar to post, condemned, cussed, ridiculed, accorded no respect, permitted no sense of human dignity. What can be done I don't know. Nearly everyone, particularly the southerners, seem to think the only problem involved is seeing to it that they keep their place, whatever that may be. We supposedly are fighting this war to obliterate the malignant idea of racial supremacy and master-slave relationships. When this war is over the colored problem is apt to be more difficult than ever. May wisdom, justice, brotherly love guide our steps to the right solution.”

Nile Kinnick (1918–1943) College football player

Journal entry (March 12, 1942)

Love, War, People, Justice

“If these Commentaries shall but inspire in the rising generation a more ardent love of their country, an unquenchable thirst for liberty, and a profound reverence for the constitution and the union, then they will have accomplished all that their author ought to desire. Let the American youth never forget that they possess a noble inheritance, bought by the toils, and sufferings, and blood of their ancestors; and capable, if wisely improved, and faithfully guarded, of transmitting to their latest posterity all the substantial blessings of life, the peaceful enjoyment of liberty, property, religion, and independence. The structure has been erected by architects of consummate skill and fidelity; its foundations are solid; its compartments are beautiful as well as useful; its arrangements are full of wisdom and order; and its defences are impregnable from without. It has been reared for immortality, if the work of man may justly aspire to such a title. It may, nevertheless, perish in an hour by the folly, or corruption, or negligence of its only keepers, THE PEOPLE. Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people in order to betray them.”

Joseph Story book Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States

Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, 2d ed. (1851), vol. 2, chapter 45, p. 617. This passage was not in the first edition, but in all later editions.

Love, Life, People, Youth

“We should therefore, with grace and optimism, embrace NOMA's tough-minded demand: Acknowledge the personal character of these human struggles about morals and meanings, and stop looking for definite answers in nature's construction. But many people cannot bear to surrender nature as a “transitional object”—a baby's warm blanket for our adult comfort. But when we do (for we must), nature can finally emerge in her true form: not as a distorted mirror of our needs, but as our most fascinating companion. Only then can we unite the patches built by our separate magisteria into a beautiful and coherent quilt called wisdom.”

Stephen Jay Gould book Rocks of Ages

Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life (Ballantine, 1999), p. 178

People, Beauty, Optimism, Nature

“A world-picture that encompasses science but also the deep wisdom of theology may help us to explain how it is we can think, how we discover the extraordinary, but so too it may warn us of present dangers and future catastrophes...”

Simon Conway Morris (1951) British palaeontologist

The Boyle lecture (2005)

World, Thinking, Science, Future

“Paradigm shifts in human thought always depend on iconoclasts who are not afraid to challenge conventional wisdom. Although our thinking in the past generation about the moral status of animals has advanced in certain respects, its fundamental presuppositions have suffered from a debilitating stagnation. … The fact that we humans tend to be comfortable with a regime of animal exploitation dating back thousands of years is not a justification for our continued subjugation of animals. It is an obstacle that we urgently need to overcome. To this end, what we need more than anything else is thinkers with the courage and the determination to break the images in the temple.”

Gary Steiner (1956) American philosopher

Foreword https://books.google.it/books?id=UdYYBQAAQBAJ&pg=PR9 to Animals as Persons: Essays on the Abolition of Animal Exploitation by Gary L. Francione, Columbia University Press, 2009.

Courage, Thinking, Suffering, Past

“To work and create "for nothing," to sculpture in clay, to know one's creation has no future, to see one's work destroyed in a day while being aware that fundamentally this has no more importance than building for centuries — this is the difficult wisdom that absurd thought sanctions. Performing these two tasks simultaneously, negating on the one hand and magnifying on the other, it the way open to the absurd creator. He must give the void its colors.”

Albert Camus book The Myth of Sisyphus

The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), Absurd Creation

Color, Way, Future

“Be wiser than other people if you can; but do not tell them so.”

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) British statesman and man of letters

19 November 1745
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)

People, Wise

“Each man follows the path of destiny, but no two paths are alike. It seems that mine now runs into a place of evil intent, wasted wisdom, and stupidity.”

Andre Norton (1912–2005) American writer of science fiction and fantasy

Source: Dragon Magic (1972), Chapter 5, “Shui Mien Lung—Slumbering Dragon” (p. 168)

Stupidity, Evil

“Jews like presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders have forgotten that riches are a reward for work well done. In the Jewish faith's infinite wisdom, wealth justly acquired is a sign of God's blessing.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

"Burn-the-Wealth Bernie & His Partial Enslavement System," http://www.quarterly-review.org/burn-the-wealth-bernie/The Quarterly Review, October 16, 2015 2010s, 2015

God, Faith, Hope, Wealth

“I find that to be a fool as to worldly wisdom, and to commit my cause to God, not fearing to offend men, who take offence at the simplicity of truth, is the only way to remain unmoved at the sentiments of others.”

John Woolman (1720–1772) American Quaker preacher

Source: The Journal of John Woolman (1774), p. 36; as cited in: Ruth Marie Griffith (2008) American Religions: A Documentary History. p. 137

Men, God, Truth, Fear

“In grammar school—and as new to American history as to the American tongue—I nevertheless puzzled through several junior biographies of Franklin because young Ben’s ambition magnified my own. I kept lists in those years of the books I read. I recognized the yearning to escape the limits of family—“a strong inclination for the sea”—as well as some more vertical yearning: a boy becomes a man by gaining wisdom; each book a rung therefore; each rung a classical tag. I weighed the shame of the sordid candle shop where Franklin was forced to work for his father against the optimism of old New England.”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

Brown : The Last Discovery of America (2003)

Books, School, Family, History

“For astronomy is not only pleasant, but also very useful to be known: it cannot be denied that this art unfolds the admirable wisdom of God.”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

Commentary on the Book of Genesis. Chapter I http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/ipb-e/epl-01/cvgn1-03.txt. Genesis (1554)

God, Art

“We may compare this sum of the life forces, which we call heredity, to the character of a sensitive plate in the camera. Outside pictures impress themselves more or less distinctly on the sensitive plate… Stored within heredity are all joys, sorrows, loves, hates, music, art, temples, palaces, pyramids, hovels, kings, queens, paupers, bards, prophets and philosophers, oceans, caves, volcanoes, floods, earthquakes, wars, triumphs, defeats, reverence, courage, wisdom, virtue, love and beauty, time, space, and all the mysteries of the universe. The appropriate environments will bring out and intensify all these general human hereditary experiences and quicken them again into life and action, thus modifying for good or evil, character—heredity—destiny.”

Luther Burbank (1849–1926) American botanist, horticulturist and pioneer in agricultural science

p, 125
The Training of the Human Plant (1907)

Love, Life, Hate, War

“Of this fair volume which we World do name
If we the sheets and leaves could turn with care,
Of him who it corrects, and did it frame,
We clear might read the art and wisdom rare.”

William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585–1649) British writer

Human Folly http://www.bartleby.com/40/196.html

World, Art, Reading

“Cheerful with wisdom, with innocence gay,
And calm with your joys gently glide thro' the day.
The dews of the evening most carefully shun —
Those tears of the sky for the loss of the sun.”

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) British statesman and man of letters

"Advice to a Lady in Autumn", published in A Collection of Poems in Six Volumes. By Several Hands. Vol. I. (1763), printed by J. Hughs, for R. and J. Dodsley

Tear, Loss, Sun, Joy

“Albert Einstein quipped that “everyone sits in the prison of his own ideas; he must burst it open.” Although we may not have the complete knowledge or we may be bombarded with contradictory information, we can still make informed decisions based on wisdom and the knowledge of good and evil.”

Newton Lee American computer scientist

Google It: Total Information Awareness, 2016

Idea, Knowledge, Decision, Evil

“One tool that is used most and has the greatest misuse of power is looks, and another tool that is used least and has the least desire for power is wisdom.”

Eugene J. Martin (1938–2005) American artist

Annotated Drawings by Eugene J. Martin: 1977-1978

“The first duty of a government is to be true to itself. This does not mean perfection, it means a plan to strive for perfection. It means loyalty to ideals. The ideals of America were set out in the Declaration of Independence and adopted in the Constitution. They did not represent perfection at hand, but perfection found. The fundamental principle was freedom. The fathers knew that this was not yet apprehended. They formed a government firm in the faith that it was ever to press toward this high mark. In selfishness, in greed, in lust for gain, it turned aside. Enslaving others, it became itself enslaved. Bondage in one part consumed freedom in all parts. The government of the fathers, ceasing to be true to itself, was perishing. Five score and ten years ago, that divine providence which infinite repetition has made only the more a miracle, sent into the world a new life destined to save a nation. No star, no sign foretold his coming. About his cradle all was poor and mean, save only the source of all great men, the love of a wonderful woman. When she faded away in his tender years from her deathbed in humble poverty, she endowed her son with greatness. There can be no proper observance of a birthday which forgets the mother. Into his origin, as into his life, men long have looked and wondered. In wisdom great, but in humility greater, in justice strong, but in compassion stronger, he became a leader of men by being a follower of the truth. He overcame evil with good. His presence filled the nation. He broke the might of oppression. He restored a race to its birthright.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Duty of Government (1920)

Love, Life, Men, Truth

“Solomon made a great mistake when he asked for wisdom.”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

Note-Book of Anton Chekhov (1921)

“Wisdom is synergy of mind and heart.”

Stephen R. Covey book First Things First

First Things First (1994), Disputed

Heart

“As a man of the Congress, let me reaffirm my conviction that the collective wisdom of our two great legislative bodies, while not infallible, will in the end serve the people faithfully and very, very well.”

Gerald Ford (1913–2006) American politician, 38th President of the United States (in office from 1974 to 1977)

1970s, First Vice-Presidential address (1973)

People

“Following conventional wisdom and relying on shortcuts can be worse than knowing nothing at all.”

Ben Horowitz (1966) American businessman

Forbes: "5 Obstacles That Inspired Me To Innovate" https://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2018/06/28/5-obstacles-that-inspired-me-to-innovate/#8f06bb42b77f (28 June 2018)

“[in response to a question about what was meant by his "cosmic religion"] It is not a religion that teaches that man is made in the image of God—that is anthropomorphic. Man has infinite dimensions and finds God in his conscience. This religion has no dogma other than teaching man that the universe is rational and that his highest destiny is to ponder it and co-create with its laws. There are only two limiting factors: first, that what seems impenetrable to us is as important as what is cut and dried; and, second, that our faculties are dull and can only comprehend wisdom and serene beauty in crude forms, but the heart of man through intuition leads us to greater understanding of ourselves and the universe. My religion is based on Moses: Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. And for me God is the First Cause. David and the prophets knew that there could be no love without justice or justice without love. I don't need any other religious trappings.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Source: Attributed in posthumous publications, Einstein and the Poet (1983), p. 108

Love, God, Religion, Justice

“I was born wise. Street-wise, people-wise, self-wise. This wisdom was my birthright. I was also born old. And illegitimate. But the two big advantages I had at birth were to have been born wise and to have been born in poverty.”

Sophia Loren (1934) Italian actress

Quoted by A. E. Hotchner in Sophia, Living and Loving: Her Own Story (1979), p. 9 http://books.google.com/books?id=IBBbPUCmiNUC&q=%22I+was+born+wise+Street-wise+people-wise+self-wise+This+wisdom+was+my+birthright+I+was+also+born+old+And+illegitimate+But+the+two+big+advantages+I+had+at+birth+were+to+have+been+born+wise+and+to+have+been+born+in+poverty%22&pg=PA9#v=onepage

People, Birth

“Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Second Speech on Conciliation with America (1775)

“O Music! sphere-descended maid,
Friend of Pleasure, Wisdom's aid!”

William Collins (1721–1759) English poet, born 1721

Source: The Passions, an Ode for Music (1747), Line 95.

Pleasure, Music

“What need is there of long journeying on the land or voyaging on the seas to seek and search for virtue, whose roots have been set by their Maker ever so near us, as the wise legislator of the Jews also says, “in thy mouth, in thy heart and in thy hand,” thereby indicating in a figure, words, thoughts and actions? All these, indeed, need the cultivator’s skill. Those who prefer idleness to labor, not only prevent the growths but also wither and destroy the roots. But those who consider inaction mischievous and are willing to labor, do as the husbandman does with fine young shoots. By constant care they rear the virtues into stems rising up to heaven, saplings ever blooming and immortal, bearing and never ceasing to bear the fruits of happiness, or as some hold, not so much bearing as being in themselves that happiness. These Moses often calls by the compound name of wholefruits. In the case of growths which spring from the earth, neither are the trees the fruit nor the fruit the trees, but in the soul’s plantation the saplings of wisdom, of justice, of temperance, have their whole being transformed completely into fruits.”

Philo (-15–45 BC) Roman philosopher

68-71.
Every Good Man is Free

Happiness, Justice, Soul, Search

“Edmund Gettier convinced most philosophers that the received wisdom of millennia about the concept of knowledge was mistaken: “knowledge” was not simply a matter of having a justified, true belief … A justified true belief isn’t “knowledge” when the justification for the true belief isn’t the cause of why the agent holds the belief. As Philip Kitcher put the point, in explaining the stimulus Gettier provided to the “naturalistic” turn in epistemology: “the epistemic status of a belief state depends on the etiology of the state.” … We can understand, now, the logic of the hermeneutics of suspicion as exploiting precisely this point about the epistemic status of belief: we should be suspicious of the epistemic status of beliefs that have the wrong causal etiology. That’s the lesson of the Gettier counter-examples, and it is the lesson which underwrites the suspicion that Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud recommend by way of providing alternative causal trajectories to explain our beliefs. To be sure, beliefs with the wrong causal etiology might be true; but since they are no longer cases of knowledge, we have no reason to presume that to be the case.”

Brian Leiter (1963) American philosopher and legal scholar

"The Hermeneutics of Suspicion: Recovering Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud"

Way, Understanding, Knowledge, Dependency

“Some of the biggest changes have been in the process of generating business strategies—what I call “strategy work.” Around 1980, the received wisdom was to decentralize into business units, which would each generate a strategic plan. These plans were then amalgamated up the hierarchy, in some portfolio way, for senior management. That approach has all but disappeared, and we’ve seen a dramatic recentralization of strategy work.”

Richard Rumelt (1942) American economist

Response to the question: "You’ve been teaching about, researching, and consulting on business and corporate strategy for 35 years. What changes have you seen in that time?"
"McKinsey Quarterly interview," 2007

Way, Business, Change

“I have lived no cloistered life and hold in contempt the wise man who has not lived and the scholar who will not share. There have been many wiser men than I, but few have traveled as much road. I have seen life from the top down and the bottom up. I know how it looks both ways. And I know there is wisdom and that there is hope.”

L. Ron Hubbard (1911–1986) American science fiction author, philosopher, cult leader, and the founder of the Church of Scientology

My Philosophy (1965) http://www.ronthephilosopher.org/phlspher/page84.htm.

Life, Men, Hope, Way

“What a curious picture it is to find man, homo sapiens, of divine origin, we are told, seriously considering going underground to escape the consequences of his own folly. With a little wisdom and foresight, surely it is not yet necessary to forsake life in the fresh air and in the warmth of the sunlight. What a paradox if our own cleverness in science should force us to live underground with the moles.”

J. William Fulbright (1905–1995) American politician

Address to the Foreign Policy Association, New York City (October 20, 1945), in Fulbright of Arkansas: The Public Positions of a Private Thinker (1963)

Life, Science

“The name philosopher, which meant originally 'lover of wisdom,' has come in some strange way to mean a man who thinks it is his business to explain everything in a certain number of large books. It will be found, I think, that in proportion to his colossal ignorance is the perfection and symmetry of the system which he sets up; because it is so much easier to put an empty room tidy than a full one.”

William Kingdon Clifford (1845–1879) English mathematician and philosopher

As quoted by A. D'Abro, The Evolution of Scientific Thought from Newton to Einstein https://archive.org/details/TheEvolutionOfScientificThought (1927)

Books, Way, Lovers, Business

“There's been a revolution in the fields of anthropology and archaeology over the past thirty years, and increasingly people are coming to understand that life before agriculture and domestication — of animals and ourselves — was in fact largely one of leisure, intimacy with nature, sensual wisdom, gender equality, and health.”

John Zerzan (1943) American anarchist and primitivist philosopher and author

Running on Emptiness: The Pathology of Civilization (2002)

Life, People, Health, Understanding

“People always blame the girl; she should have said no. A monosyllable, but conventional wisdom has always been that boys can't manage it.”

Anna Quindlen (1952) journalist, Novelist

The New York Times, sect. 4, p. 13 (April 11, 1993).

People, Girl, Boy

“Is this kind of ethics individualistic or not? Yes, if one means by that that it accords to the individual an absolute value and that it recognizes in him alone the power of laying the foundations of his own existence. It is individualism in the sense in which the wisdom of the ancients, the Christian ethics of salvation, and the Kantian ideal of virtue also merit this name; it is opposed to the totalitarian doctrines which raise up beyond man the mirage of Mankind. But it is not solipsistic, since the individual is defined only by his relationship to the world and to other individuals; he exists only by transcending himself, and his freedom can be achieved only through the freedom of others. He justifies his existence by a movement which, like freedom, springs from his heart but which leads outside of him.
This individualism does not lead to the anarchy of personal whim. Man is free; but he finds his law in his very freedom. First, he must assume his freedom and not flee it by a constructive movement: one does not exist without doing something; and also by a negative movement which rejects oppression for oneself and others.”

Simone de Beauvoir book The Ethics of Ambiguity

Une telle morale [la morale existentialiste] est-elle ou non un individualisme? Oui, si l’on entend par là qu’elle accorde à l’individu une valeur absolue et qu’elle reconnaît qu’a lui seul le pouvoir de fonder son existence. Elle est individualisme au sens où les sagesses antiques, la morale chrétienne du salut, l’idéal de la vertu kantienne méritent aussi ce nom ; elle s’oppose aux doctrines totalitaires qui dressent par-delà I’homme le mirage de l’Humanité. Mais elle n’est pas un solipsisme, puisque l’individu ne se définit que par sa relation au monde et aux autres individus, il n’existe qu’en se transcendant et sa liberté ne peut s’accomplir qu’à travers la liberté d’autrui. Il justifie son existence par un mouvement qui, comme elle, jaillit du coeur de lui-même, mais qui aboutit hors de lui. Cet individualisme ne conduit pas à l’anarchie du bon plaisir. L’homme est libre ; mais il trouve sa loi dans sa liberté même. D’abord il doit assumer sa liberté et non la fuir; il l’assume par un mouvement constructif : on n’existe pas sans faire; et aussi par un mouvement négatif qui refuse l’oppression pour soi et pour autrui. Conclusion http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/ethics/de-beauvoir/ambiguity/ch04.htm The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947)

World, Law, Spring, Sense

“Find in yourself the strength and wisdom to show love and care to everyone, near you, regardless of the region they live in, ethnicity or religion. Be wise and don't be fooled by provocation, be united under the idea of brotherhood, unity and love to the Ukraine! Russians, Ukrainians and all the other Slavic people, are historically brother nations. A brother can't go against his brother, it's a curse and grief. There is a force stronger than weapons in this world, it is love.", Tymoschuk about the 2014 political crisis in Ukraine and the Russo-Ukrainian war, 2014.”

Anatoliy Tymoshchuk (1979) Ukrainian footballer

http://www.ua-football.com/ukrainian/ukrainians/5314b4c0.html

Love, War, People, World

“The graves all are silent. The caskets are vacant. Stalin has no more wisdom for us. Nietzsche is preserved in books, having forgotten to lift his casket lid and tell us he was right. Muhammad gives us the slip. So does Buddha. It is Christ alone who defeats the grave. Nothing is left in the tomb but echoes and cobwebs. And so we do well to listen to Him with the ears of dying men.”

Donald Miller (1971) American writer

Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance (2000, Harvest House Publishers)

Men, Books, Christ

“The wise men understood that this natural world is simply a guarantee that there exists a world that is perfect. God created the world so that, through its visible objects, men could understand his spiritual teachings and the marvels of his wisdom. That's what I mean by action.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist (1988), p. 151.

Men, God, World, Understanding

“The establishment of inwardness and the creation of the illusion of privacy are the most subversive themes of enlightenment. It is still not really clear today who the social conveyor of this impulse of enlightenment may be. One of the ambivalences of enlightenment is that although intelligence can be explained sociologically, educationally, and politically, “wisdom,” self-reflection cannot. The subject of a radical ego enlightenment cannot be socially identified with certainty—even though the procedures of this enlightenment are anchored in reality.
In this point, the majority of societies seem to strive for a conscious nonenlightenment.”

Peter Sloterdijk (1947) German philosopher

Source: Kritik der zynischen Vernunft [Critique of Cynical Reason] (1983), p. 60

Intelligence, Reality

“I sit beside my lonely fire
And pray for wisdom yet:
For calmness to remember
Or courage to forget.”

Charles Hamilton Aide (1826–1906) French writer

Remember or Forget, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Courage, Forgetting

“All the life's wisdom can be found in anagrams. Anagrams never lie.”

Anu Garg (1967) Indian author

In Internet Anagram Server http://wordsmith.org/anagram

Life, Lie

“I know you are asking today, "How long will it take?" Somebody's asking, "How long will prejudice blind the visions of men, darken their understanding, and drive bright-eyed wisdom from her sacred throne?" Somebody's asking, "When will wounded justice, lying prostrate on the streets of Selma and Birmingham and communities all over the South, be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men?" Somebody's asking, "When will the radiant star of hope be plunged against the nocturnal bosom of this lonely night, plucked from weary souls with chains of fear and the manacles of death? How long will justice be crucified, and truth bear it?" I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, because "truth crushed to earth will rise again." How long? Not long, because "no lie can live forever."”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

How long? Not long, because "you shall reap what you sow."
1960s, How Long, Not Long (1965)

Death, Men, Children, Truth

“Scepticism, like wisdom, springs out in full panoply only from the brain of a god, and it is little profit to see an idea in its growth, unless we track its seed to the power which sowed it.”

James Anthony Froude book The Nemesis of Faith

Arthur's commentary
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)

God, Spring, Idea

“As to the viciousness of the philosophers, the meaning of this complaint is succinctly expressed in the charge that the philosophers do not “hold the gods the city holds.” And this accusation is most true. The quest for wisdom begins in doubt of the conventional wisdom about the highest things. The most cherished beliefs of the community, the collective hopes and fears, are centered on its gods. The unpardonable thing is to be beyond these hopes and fears, beyond the awe and shame the gods impose.”

Allan Bloom (1930–1992) American philosopher, classicist, and academician

“Commerce and Culture,” p. 287.
Giants and Dwarfs (1990)

God, Fear, Hope, Communication

“Love calls it folly, what so wisdom saith.”

Torquato Tasso (1544–1595) Italian poet

Nè consiglio d'uom sano Amor riceve.
Canto V, stanza 78 (tr. Fairfax)
Gerusalemme Liberata (1581)

Love

“For in that time He shewed our frailty and our fallings, our afflictings and our settings at nought, our despites and our outcastings, and all our woe so far forth as methought it might befall in this life. And therewith He shewed His blessed Might, His blessed Wisdom, His blessed Love: that He keepeth us in this time as tenderly and as sweetly to His worship, and as surely to our salvation, as He doeth when we are in most solace and comfort.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

Summations, Chapter 62

Love, Life, Affliction, Time

“She had never acquired in-between shades of character, had not had the opportunity. She had been utterly selfish, and was now selfless, because she had never become a whole person, did not like herself, or know herself. Nor had she ever gained sufficient wisdom to be properly horrified at what she meant to do. She couldn’t think that intensely.”

Tanith Lee book The Castle of Dark

Source: The Castle of Dark (1978), Chapter 17 “Lilune: The Lion” (p. 161)

Thinking, Personality, Selfishness

“Just as he was an Elk, a Booster, and a member of the Chamber of Commerce, just as the priests of the Presbyterian Church determined his every religious belief and the senators who controlled the Republican Party decided in little smoky rooms in Washington what he should think about disarmament, tariff, and Germany, so did the large national advertisers fix the surface of his life, fix what he believed to be his individuality. These standard advertised wares—toothpastes, socks, tires, cameras, instantaneous hot-water heaters—were his symbols and proofs of excellence; at first sight the signs, then the substitutes, for joy and passion and wisdom.”

Sinclair Lewis book Babbitt

Babbitt (1922), Ch. 7

Life, Thinking, Water, Passion

“Let no-one mistake. This Church, and other faith groups, have the ability to be agents for change and change for the better. … You have worked to promote understanding among faiths. To tackle sectarianism. To promote development worldwide. … And let me say that for our Parliament, that is something that may not yet be formally our responsibility. But it is, in reality, our obligation. … In ancient times it was said that Sparta had no city walls. It did not need them, the people were the walls of Sparta. This church and our other institutions - spiritual and secular are the walls of Scotland - the rocks on which reform and renewal will be built. … We will continue to draw on this Church as a source of wisdom. A source of strength. A source of hope.”

Alex Salmond (1954) Scottish National Party politician and former First Minister of Scotland

Scotland in the World Forum (February 4, 2008), Church of Scotland (May 25, 2009)

People, Faith, Hope, Understanding

“Great strength of body is the gift of nature;
But to be able to advise whate'er
Is most expedient for one's country's good,
Is the peculiar work of sense and wisdom.”

Bias of Priene (-600–-530 BC) ancient Greek philosopher, one of the Seven Sages

The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 230)

Nature, Sense, Country

“They who out of wisdom
Have seized the supreme Bodhimind
Praise, glorify and rejoice in it,
That it may grow to fulfilment.”

Šantidéva (685–763) 8th-century Indian Buddhist monk and scholar

Bodhicaryavatara

“Silence, much more powerful than before, much more shot through with the meaning of life and the accumulated wisdom of history.”

James A. Michener book Poland

page 361
Poland (1983)

Life, History, Silence

“There shall always be much silence in a man's conduct. He shall speak only about a matter concerned with wisdom or matters that are necessary to keep his body alive.”

Maimónides (1138–1204) rabbi, physician, philosopher

Source: Hilkhot De'ot (Laws Concerning Character Traits), Chapter 2, Section 4, p. 32

Silence

“I know where there is more wisdom than is found in Napoleon, Voltaire, or all the ministers present and to come — in public opinion.”

Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (1754–1838) French diplomat

“It is regrettable that some Tibetan officials, who lack the wisdom and competence required for promoting basic human happiness and the short and long term welfare of their own people, indulge in flattering Chinese officials and, collaborate with these Chinese officials who know nothing about Tibetans and work simply for their temporary fame indulging in fabricating impressive reports. In reality, the Tibetan people have not only undergone immeasurable sufferings, but large numbers have also unnecessarily lost their lives.”

Tenzin Gyatso (1935) spiritual leader of Tibet

Letter to Deng Xiaoping (1981)

Happiness, People, Reality, Suffering

“Wisdom is the understanding of celestial things to which the Spirit is brought by Love.”

Honoré de Balzac book Séraphîta

Source: Seraphita (1835), Ch. 3: Seraphita - Seraphitus.

Love, Understanding

“We do have jackets like that at the Palace of Wisdom.”

John Hennigan (1979) American professional wrestler

The Palace Of Wisdom

“After Ashoka's lavish sponsorship of Buddhism, it is perfectly possible that Buddhist institutions fell on slightly harder times under the Sungas, but persecution is quite another matter. The famous historian of Buddhism Etienne Lamotte has observed: "To judge from the documents, Pushyamitra must be acquitted through lack of proof."…The only reason to sustain the suspicion against Pushyamitra, once it has been levelled, is that "where there is smoke, there must be fire"”

Pushyamitra Shunga King of Sunga Dynasty

but that piece of received wisdom is presupposed in every act of slander as well.
E. Lamotte: History of Indian Buddhism, Institut Orientaliste, Louvain-la-Neuve 1988 (1958), quoted in Elst, K. (2002). Who is a Hindu?: Hindu revivalist views of Animism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and other offshoots of Hinduism.

Time

“One of these days I'll make a few casual remarks about Winston [Churchill]. Not a speech—no oratory—just a few words in passing. I've got it all ready. I am going to say that when Winston was born lots of fairies swooped down on his cradle gifts—imagination, eloquence, industry, ability, and then came a fairy who said "No one person has a right to so many gifts", picked him up and gave him such a shake and twist that with all these gifts he was denied judgment and wisdom. And that is why while we delight to listen to him in this House, we do not take his advice.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Conversation with Thomas Jones (22 May 1936), quoted in Thomas Jones, A Diary with Letters. 1931-1950 (Oxford University Press, 1954), p. 204.
1936

Imagination, Housing, Personality

“As philosophy becomes academic and tends to repudiate its responsibility to the culture in which it flourishes, the layman in need of wisdom and vision turns to evangelic practicalists, who confirm him in his myopic prejudice that the exclusive end of moral philosophy is actually to direct social activity toward the concrete and immediate improvement of social conditions. But, since there is no way of knowing except by arduous philosophical criticism whether the ends to which a reformer would lead us represent genuine improvement, the practicalist’s impatience with theory is at best hasty.”

Eliseo Vivas (1901–1993) American philosopher

The Moral Life and the Ethical Life (Chicago: 1950), pp. 3-4

Way

“To all the unheard wisdom in the school yard: you think you're the right ones; you swear you're the charmed ones I'm sure. But how can you go on with such conviction? Who do you think you are when you question me?”

Alanis Morissette (1974) Canadian-American singer-songwriter

Can't Not
Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie (1998)

School, Question, Thinking

“It has ever been held the highest wisdom for a man not merely to submit to Necessity,—Necessity will make him submit,—but to know and believe well that the stern thing which Necessity had ordered was the wisest, the best, the thing wanted there. To cease his frantic pretension of scanning this great God's-World in his small fraction of a brain; to know that it had verily, though deep beyond his soundings, a Just Law, that the soul of it was Good;—that his part in it was to conform to the Law of the Whole, and in devout silence follow that; not questioning it, obeying it as unquestionable.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Prophet

God, World, Law, Soul

“A Vastness, as a Neighbor, came,
A Wisdom, without Face, or Name,
A Peace, as Hemispheres at Home
And so the Night became.”

Emily Dickinson The Crickets sang

1104: The Crickets sang
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1960)

Peace, Home, Night

“If the people at large be not already convinced that a sufficient general case has been made out for Administrative Reform, I think they never can be, and they never will be…. Ages ago a savage mode of keeping accounts on notched sticks was introduced into the Court of Exchequer, and the accounts were kept, much as Robinson Crusoe kept his calendar on the desert island. In the course of considerable revolutions of time, the celebrated Cocker was born, and died; Walkinghame, of the Tutor's Assistant, and well versed in figures, was also born, and died; a multitude of accountants, book-keepers and actuaries, were born, and died. Still official routine inclined to these notched sticks, as if they were pillars of the constitution, and still the Exchequer accounts continued to be kept on certain splints of elm wood called "tallies." In the reign of George III an inquiry was made by some revolutionary spirit, whether pens, ink, and paper, slates and pencils, being in existence, this obstinate adherence to an obsolete custom ought to be continued, and whether a change ought not to be effected.
All the red tape in the country grew redder at the bare mention of this bold and original conception, and it took till 1826 to get these sticks abolished. In 1834 it was found that there was a considerable accumulation of them; and the question then arose, what was to be done with such worn-out, worm-eaten, rotten old bits of wood? I dare say there was a vast amount of minuting, memoranduming, and despatch-boxing on this mighty subject. The sticks were housed at Westminster, and it would naturally occur to any intelligent person that nothing could be easier than to allow them to be carried away for fire-wood by the miserable people who live in that neighbourhood. However, they never had been useful, and official routine required that they never should be, and so the order went forth that they were to be privately and confidentially burnt. It came to pass that they were burnt in a stove in the House of Lords. The stove, overgorged with these preposterous sticks, set fire to the panelling; the panelling set fire to the House of Lords; the House of Lords set fire to the House of Commons; the two houses were reduced to ashes; architects were called in to build others; we are now in the second million of the cost thereof, the national pig is not nearly over the stile yet; and the little old woman, Britannia, hasn't got home to-night…. The great, broad, and true cause that our public progress is far behind our private progress, and that we are not more remarkable for our private wisdom and success in matters of business than we are for our public folly and failure, I take to be as clearly established as the sun, moon, and stars.”

Charles Dickens (1812–1870) English writer and social critic and a Journalist

"Administrative Reform" (June 27, 1855) Theatre Royal, Drury Lane Speeches Literary and Social by Charles Dickens https://books.google.com/books?id=bT5WAAAAcAAJ (1870) pp. 133-134

People, Books, Age, Home

“The highest wisdom incarnated in the poorest body. And even in straw mixed with manure: the final substances in which, by a rare miracle, the origin and strength of life emerge anew. The circle closes.”

Antoni Tàpies (1923–2012) Catalan painter, sculptor and art theorist

quote on using 'poor' materials, he used in his 'Arte Povera' works
1945 - 1970
Source: 'Res no és mesquí', La pràctica de l'art, Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona: Ariel, 1970; as quoted in: 'Tàpies: From Within', June ─ November, 2013 - Presse Release, Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya (MNAC ), p. 13, note 14

Life

“There is no estimating the wit and wisdom concealed and latent in our lower fellow mortals until made manifest by profound experiences; for it is through suffering that dogs as well as saints are developed and made perfect.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

Terry Gifford, LLO, page 685
For more excerpts from Muir's account of the dog Stickeen in Alaska, see Stickeen.
1900s, Stickeen (1909)

Dogs, Suffering, Perfection

“A certain large collective wisdom resides in a crowd, as such; and men whose individual judgement is defective are excellent judges when grouped together.”
In numero ipso est quoddam magnum collatumque consilium, quibusque singulis iudicii parum, omnibus plurimum.

Pliny the Younger (61–113) Roman writer

Letter 17, 10.
Letters, Book VII

Men

“If thou art fighting against thy sins, so is God. On thy side is God who made all, and Christ who died for all and the Spirit who alone gives wisdom, purity, and nobleness.”

Charles Kingsley (1819–1875) English clergyman, historian and novelist

Source: Attributed, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 263.

God, Art, Christ, Fight

“There is no kind of framework within which we can find consciousness in the plural; this is simply something we construct because of the temporal plurality of individuals, but it is a false construction… The only solution to this conflict insofar as any is available to us at all lies in the ancient wisdom of the Upanishad.”

Erwin Schrödinger (1887–1961) Austrian physicist

Source: My View of the World (1951), Chapter 4

Falseness

“I am not beholden to a Jewish tradition based on divine law and belief, but rather see Judaism as a golden heritage of rigorous inquiry, wisdom and discussion of the human condition which offers me profound wisdom and guidance in how I live my life.”

Edgar Bronfman, Sr. (1929–2013) Canadian-American businessman

http://blogs.forward.com/avraham-burg/tags/edgar-m-bronfman/

Life, Law

“The essence of being an independent expert is not only the expertise, which must be a given and is conscientiously assessed by this Council before appointing rapporteurs, but the capacity to carry out the mandate free of intimidation or interference, free of thinking barriers, or of political correctness. An independent expert would fail the mandate and the Council if he or she were to rehash existing wisdoms and engage in rhetoric that only confirms the status quo. The essence of the independent expert is his independence to think outside systems, beyond prejudices, to give impulses, offer new perspectives -- and to make bold proposals to the Human Rights Council.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

Alfred de Zayas' comments to the remarks made by NGOs and States during the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council Session http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=13713&LangID=E Comments by Alfred de Zayas, Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order, following the Interactive Dialogue on the presentation of his thematic report. 2013

Thinking

“If I had to pick a religion, I'd pick Buddhism. Buddhism is a kindly religion. It says you got a chance… it's got humor, it's got wisdom, it says to be nice to each other. All the rest of them have gods that want to beat the crap out of you if you defy the rules.”

Harlan Ellison (1934–2018) American writer

Interviewed by J. Michael Straczynski Clue book for the computer version of I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream http://infidels.org/kiosk/author/harlan-ellison-207.html

God, Religion, Chance

“Well, perhaps you have begun your journey toward wisdom, Mr. Flattery,” Kent said seriously. “We have such a short time and the journey is so terribly long. One cannot begin too soon.”

Sean Russell (1952) author

Source: World Without End (1995), Chapter 11 (p. 158)

Time

“It has been the resolution of mankind in all ages of the world. No people, no age, ever threw away the fruits of past wisdom, or the enjoyment of present blessings, for visionary schemes of ideal perfection. It is the knowledge of the past, the actual infliction of the present, that has produced all changes, all innovations, and all improvements — not (as is pretended) the chimerical anticipation of possible advantages, but the intolerable pressure of long-established, notorious, aggravated, and growing abuses.”

William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer

"On Paradox and Common-Place" Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

People, Age, World, Knowledge